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“You Killed the Author of Life!” and other unusal sermon content. A reflection on the striking and bold content of the early Kerygma
The scene is Pentecost Sunday and Simon Peter has just received the Holy Spirit along with 120 others. A crowd has gathered, intrigued by the manifestation of the Spirit in the upper room. The door opens and out steps Simon Peter. and he begins to boldly proclaim Christ. After an initial summary of Jesus’ life [...] Read the rest of this entry »
Four Gifts of Grace – A Meditation on the Gospel for the 6th Sunday of Easter
The Gospel for today has a number of “sayings” of the Lord Jesus which all amount to a kind of litany of love and setting forth of the gifts that He by his grace is and will accomplish in us. Lets get right to work and consider the wonderful gifts of grace. I. Power – [...] Read the rest of this entry »
The Protection of the Flock, as seen on TV.
There is a line from scripture that says, Woe to the solitary man. If he falls he has no one to lift him up. (Ecclesiastes 4:10) Scripture also says, And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, [...] Read the rest of this entry »
One of the Most Vivid Descriptions Of St Athanasius I Have Ever Read
A couple of brief thoughts about St. Athanasius whose feast we celebrated today. First, I have served in African American Parishes most of my priesthood. And in this context, I have often wondered why there are not more African American Parishes named for this North African Saint. So many black parishes are named for Augustine [...] Read the rest of this entry »
What Did Jesus Look Like? And Why Do We care?
I was doing some sidewalk evangelizing with a group of fellow Catholics in my neighborhood last Sunday and a very angry African American Man confronted me with the accusation that we were unjust and lying because the Image of Jesus on our banner looked European. He explained to me that everyone knew Jesus was Black [...] Read the rest of this entry »
Of Vocations and Victory: Some Good Reasons to Take Heart That the Lord is Blessing His Church
While some dioceses in the US have been closing and consolidating seminaries, here in Washington DC we recently opened a new one: The Blessed John Paul II Seminary. And things are going so well, we are now adding a new three-floor wing to accommodate more men. (See a wonderful video below on the Seminary) Currently [...] Read the rest of this entry »
Must read file: Reflections on an Insightful Column describing how the West has become and Anti-Culture
As we have discussed on this blog before, the Western World seems to have embarked on a (failed) experiment, testing whether a culture can exist without a shared cultus. That, is to say whether a true and unifying vision that we call culture can really exist at all without something above and beyond it, which [...] Read the rest of this entry »
A Brief Directive for Church Leaders from the Acts of the Apostles
The Second reading from yesterday’s mass (5th Sunday of Easter) is very Catholic and too informative to merely pass up. It presents a Church as rather highly organized and possessed of some the structures we know to day in full form. Granted, some of these structures are in seminal (seed) form, but the ARE there. [...] Read the rest of this entry »
The Legacy of Love – A Meditation on the Gospel for the 5th Week of Easter
The title of this sermon uses the word Legacy, which refers to something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or predecessor. Perhaps the most accessible image of this is money. If I receive 100 million dollars from a dying relative I can tap into those funds and start living differently. My bills that now [...] Read the rest of this entry »
“The Pearl of Great Price” and “The Woman at the Well” beautifully retold in a short animated video
The video below is a kind of retelling of the parable of the pearl of great price, and also a bit of the story of the Woman at the Well. The parable of the pearl of great price is a brief one: Jesus said, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine [...] Read the rest of this entry »
On The Story of Mark and What it teaches us About Reconciliation
The Feast of St. Mark that we celebrated today is a reminder that the Gospel occurs in the human setting and condition. Somehow I thought of this on this feast for Mark, also known as “John Mark” was at the center of tension between Paul and Barnabas and the differences were so severe that it [...] Read the rest of this entry »
We do not want you to be like whose who have no hope – A Reflection on Modern Christian Attitudes Toward Dying
At a recent meeting wherein an elderly relative was preparing advanced medical directives, a friend of the family, a secular Jew, expressed the discomfort the speaking about dying brings something to most people. I happened to mention in passing, that for a Christian, the day we die is really the greatest day of our life. [...] Read the rest of this entry »
